


Masked, I advance.

by AnnaBolena



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Masquerade Ball, Political Intrigue, What if the barricades didn't kill everything that breathes???, can be read as adjacent to these years in paris, doesn’t have to be tho, this is a gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 07:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21240596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaBolena/pseuds/AnnaBolena
Summary: “A ball?” Pontmercy’s brow furrows, his expression turns quizzical. “What reforms may possibly be pushed through on a dance floor?”Enjolras, who has not taken a seat in favor of closely analyzing the well-stocked Pontmercy library, turns around to answer. “Courfeyrac is convinced that a masquerade ball is the only feasible cover for a clandestine meeting between barricade leaders. Conveniently, it also allows him to host his father’s friends and sway them with his manifold charms.”“We are so often watched,” Pontmercy agrees thoughtfully. “A masquerade, you say?”a.k.a. A masquerade after the barricades are semi-successful





	Masked, I advance.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bleulily (wollstoncrafts)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wollstoncrafts/gifts).

> hello @bleulily, this is for you. i'm sorry to say i am terrible at writing fluff. i hope you enjoy this anyway. happy Halloween! :)
> 
> you may notice that not all of the lines from the poem have a corresponding scene. its because those lines were supposed to be Eposette scenes, but those will have to go into a part II.

_By candlelight, I come to Thee_

_When Thy need of me is strong_

_To speak, to whisper, to conceive_

_And perchance to see_

_What may come erelong, _

_What we shall achieve._

_All that we once knew_

_Has now been gone too long_

_Lost by time, lost at sea._

_I beg of Thee, please come to me._

_To awake in me that song, _

_Old yet bright and new. _

_With open eyes I take my chance,_

_To fight again, to rise, to stand. _

_Amidst the shadows of the land, _

_Masked, I advance._

-2019-

**I. By Candlelight I Come To Thee**

  
Courfeyrac does not knock on the oak door before he opens it just enough to slip through. His arrival does not go unnoticed, but once Enjolras has thrown a glance over his shoulder, he returns to his writing, though his candle already burns low. Wax gathers like a pool on the bottom of the wine bottle Enjolras appropriated for a candlestick. “Where is Combeferre?” he wonders.

“He bid me farewell in the afternoon. Duty called in the form of a hypertensive mother-to-be. I am sure he will soon come,” Courfeyrac responds.

On Enjolras’ desk lie scattered nigh a dozen pamphlets designed to engineer the downfall of a tyrant hanging on to his last threads of power by sheer determination. “My dear friend,” Courfeyrac smiles, picking up the first paper his hands grasp. “Do I err or has this nothing to do with your studies? Tsk, tsk.”

“I should hope you did not send the gamin to me with course material,” Enjolras huffs, allowing Courfeyrac to peruse the pamphlet of his choosing. The paper has not fallen victim to the day's deluge, contrary to Courfeyrac himself, who feels quite like a wet cat at the moment. “University studies are wasted on me at present.”

  
“_On Capital Punishment and The Reprehensible Ethics of A Royal Reprieve_,” Courfeyrac reads out, pulling a face. “Not what I would call memorable. I confess I did not read through all of them as I salvaged them from falling into the hands of the Paris prefecture.”

“We ought to be glad that Paris is rising,” Enjolras reminds him, putting his quill down and leaning backwards. The look he shoots Courfeyrac rather tells another story. “For a while, it did not seem as though she would.”

“Even if her prosaics produce nothing but dry treatises?”

“Treatises that may sway the right ears,” Enjolras insists, but a small smile at last graces his features.

“Perhaps I will be swayed into tracking this pamphleteer down and offering my services in the fashioning of a captivating title,” Courfeyrac snorts. “Have you given any thought to Monsieur Jeanne?”

A week has passed since they first received word from the man - a week in which they have been tormented with indecision. Enjolras shakes his head. “I have had no word from him past the extended invitation to form a part of the delegation. We are watched too closely these days to permit a meeting.”

“You are reluctant? I have never known you to be so.”

“Not to meet Jeanne,” Enjolras frowns when he speaks, a sign of thoughtfulness in him. “He wishes what we wish for France. I am certain of him. It is Monsieur Capet who worries me.”

“He torments all our nerves.” Courfeyrac pats Enjolras’ shoulder.

“The King requires those meeting with him to provide certain documents I do not possess, Courfeyrac.” Coming from Enjolras’ mouth, the title feels like a curse. He would make quite the village witch, Courfeyrac thinks in that moment, but thinks better of mentioning this observation.

“Inconvenient,” he says instead.

“Quite,” Enjolras emphasizes. “You did a fine job of charming the administrators at the Sorbonne - I doubt your charms will work on the King.”

“Do not underestimate young de Courfeyrac’s charms,” Combeferre announces himself, opening the door to Enjolras’ lodgings as silently as possible. “You would do well to lower your voices, I can hear you clear across the landing.”

“Then it is good my old landlady still keeps a portrait of St. Just around her bosom, is it not?” Enjolras snorts.

“Combeferre.” Courfeyrac grins as he extends a hand. “We had begun to worry you might have pursued other, more pleasurable activities in favor of brooding with us like old, unhappy men.”

“You are neither old, nor ever unhappy for long, Courfeyrac.” Combeferre presses his hand, then does the same to Enjolras. “I sprouted a tail on the way here and was thus delayed, I apologize for any worries I may have caused.”

“Pray tell how you rid yourself of the undesirable appendage,” Courfeyrac prompts, helping himself and Combeferre to some of Enjolras’ finest water, as the man has nothing else to offer his guests.

Combeferre removes his sopping wet cravat, slinging it over the rail guarding Enjolras’ empty fireplace before removing his coat as well. “The man was foolish. He attempted to engage me in conversation when I left Dr. Beauchamp’s laboratory. When I begged off, I noticed he began to pursue.”

“Perhaps the young man was simply quite eager to discuss how best to improve the Encyclopédie,” Courfeyrac teases. He desists when Combeferre does not smile. Since the barricades, there has been little cause for light-hearted jests, but he cannot help himself. “Or else he was taken with you. One could hardly fault him for that.”

“I paid a visit to a recovering patient on my way here. The street was deserted when I left once more.”

Enjolras nods his approval. “Have you any word from our newfound ally?”

“I treated one of his men for a barricade wound three nights ago. It is not healing well,” Combeferre recounts. “All he would tell me was that Monsieur Jeanne eagerly awaited an answer. When I informed him of our prefecture-imposed limitations, he appeared understanding. We are not the only ones under constant supervision, it seems.”

“No we are not,” Enjolras agrees. “Gavroche tells me they arrested the men who took flight from Paris.”

“With what reasoning?” Combeferre wonders.

“They can do such things because our fate hangs on the delegation. For the moment we have amnesty, but if the King decides to hang us after we have failed to reach an agreement with him, there is little power within us to stop him,” Enjolras expounds.

“So each man who fled Paris thus forfeited his amnesty?”

“It would appear so,” Enjolras scowls. “The move of a tyrant.”

“Truly,” Courfeyrac agrees, heartfelt. “I will confer on the matter with Bahorel and the eagle.”

“Gavroche told Bahorel first, naturally.” Enjolras probably means to tell Courfeyrac not to risk meeting with their two friends. “He was incensed. If I remember correctly he and Feuilly set off to nail a condemnation to the guardhouse by the Tuileries shortly thereafter.”

“Where does that leave us?” Combeferre asks, to the point. “How certain may we be of our own incarceration if we meet with Jeanne?”

“We risk forfeiting our amnesty.” Enjolras’ scowl deepens.

“Such a meeting would amount to conspiracy of treason, if our barricades are found to have been in the wrong. It is all very uncertain at the moment - truly, I do not like it. My skin itches constantly these days.”

“Conspiracy to treason in addition to the charge of treason we would already face. One such charge is enough for a death sentence.” Enjolras’ face has fallen into deep thought. He remains so for a while, until he continues: “In which case it would not matter if we had met with him. We may as well.”

“It is a convenient solution for the King, however,” Combeferre realizes, “to have us arrested before the delegation, to arrest Jeanne before the delegation. It would weaken our position considerably to see our leaders vanished before we have been allowed to use our voices.”

“And they will arrest us,” Enjolras nods. “At the very least they will try.”

“A man who has his needs met no longer requires honor,” Combeferre’s voice is angry when he speaks next.

“Only if they know we met him,” Courfeyrac suggests. “Only then may they even attempt to make an arrest, and even so it may be evaded. The path ahead seems clear to me, when viewed in this light.”

“Just so,” Enjolras nods. “That is all the answers I have for you tonight, I am sorry to say.”

“I shall try to have more for you when next we meet,” Courfeyrac vows.

“Will you stay on?”

“Hardly advisable, given the circumstances,” Combeferre shakes his head in response to Enjolras’ question. “As regrettable as it is to be denied your conversation, dear friend. The days in which we have had to forego it have been too numerous by far.”

“A safe journey home to both of you, then.” Enjolras stands to show them the door.

+

Combeferre’s lodgings are first on their route. Both men walk together in silence, but Courfeyrac’s hand is growing sweaty around Combeferre’s arm in the July heat. The rain has not let up, and still he sweats heavy as a pig. At last, Combeferre breaks the silence. “Do you know no one has heard from Grantaire since the barricades were dismantled?”

“Joly has.”

“He treated him afterwards, that is true,” Combeferre’s face betrays a deep worry. “But his apartments are deserted, so Enjolras tells me. Joly could offer no explanation as to his sudden disappearance.”

“You do not think they would arrest him? The poor man slept through the whole thing!”

“They know of his association with us,” Combeferre sighs. “Perhaps they consider that condemnation enough. These days it does not take much to commit treason, if you would believe the Gazette.”

“I will see if I may find out more.”

“What is more worrisome to me,” Combeferre admits, though he looks almost ashamed to do so, “is what Grantaire’s disappearance may mean for Enjolras.”

“You noticed as well, I take it.”

“That Enjolras is not at his best? Certainly, I would have to be blind to miss it.”

“He wishes to make things right. His rhetoric was uncharacteristically inopportune that night.” This is as diplomatic as Courfeyrac may phrase criticism of his dearest friend.

“I know – but he can hardly do that if Grantaire is nowhere to be found, can he?”

“No,” Courfeyrac agrees, then offers Combeferre his hand to shake. “Shall I come up with you?”

“You know nothing would please me better,” Combeferre promises. “But it is not advisable.”

“A curse on the King, then. May that thought give you pleasant dreams while I cannot.”

Combeferre smiles fondly. “Good night, Courfeyrac.”

“Good night,” Courfeyrac calls after him and then continues his journey home. Paris’ streets are near deserted. Every few corners, a wretched creature lies crouched on the soaked pavement. More still must have taken refuge in cooler, hidden corners. Outside of his building Courfeyrac spots perhaps the only person in Paris at this hour still standing perfectly straight, seeking a little shelter from the rain by standing close to the wall.

When Courfeyrac passes the man, merely tipping his hat, a lightning fast hand reaches out to grab him and force him to a halt. “I would have a word with you,” he whispers. The man’s voice is harsh, roughened by what appears to Courfeyrac a persistent cold. With the weather as tumultuous as it has been the past weeks, Courfeyrac is hardly surprised that many have fallen ill. His own nose has blessedly been spared congestion.

“Monsieur Jeanne, I presume?”

“If you are Monsieur Courfeyrac.”

“I am.”

“Then I am Charles Jeanne.”

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Monsieur.”

“As am I, but I am afraid it will have to be rather a short conversation.”  
“Favorable to me,” Courfeyrac assures him. “My clothes are already drenched as it is. This damned rain.”

“My letters have gone unanswered, Monsieur, though I have courted great risks in dispatching them.” Charles Jeanne’s tone, rather than posing a threat, speaks only of frustration. “I need an answer. There is a reason I have invited your leader to join me and we lose time with each passing day.”

“I do not think he would like to hear you refer to him as such. The implications clash with his egalitarian sentiments.”

The joke is well-received. Charles Jeanne looks rather more tolerable when amused. “My apologies.”

“I must meet with M. Enjolras,” he insists, nonetheless.

“We too are being watched. Political groups are under interdict until the delegation meets Monsieur le Roi - they will use a meeting as an excuse to be rid of you once and for all. Our connection at the Hotel Dieu will surely have told your men as much.Even if I cared not for my own skin, yours is a voice France cannot afford to lose - if you will permit me to say as much.”

“In secret, then,” he urges. It speaks great lengths of Charles Jeanne’s mind that he too has reached this conclusion. This, Courfeyrac takes to be the mark of a man he may efficiently work with. Too many who call themselves leaders follow only their appetite for destruction - they wish to remove the oppressors but know not what may follow. In most of the cases he has studied, Courfeyrac has found those men all too willingly install themselves in the place of those they unseated. Charles Jeanne does not seem the kind of man to hunger for power. Enjolras, Courfeyrac thinks, would enjoy debating him.

“I will see what may be arranged. Expect a gamin to feel up your purse in the coming days, citizen.”

“May God be with you, Courfeyrac.”

**II. To Speak, To Whisper, To Conceive**

  
_My dearest brother,_  
_ Enclosed in my letter are some words our lordly father ordered me to relay. Troubling news has reached us here at home, of unrest in Paris. Acquaintances that supped with us last week told us of your involvement at one of the barricades. I tell you Father looked horribly apoplectic! His vein - temporal, if dear Combeferre’s descriptions are accurate - was prominent as never before. What use we might have had of your doctor friend that day! Tell the truth of it, brother! Did you fight or did father’s acquaintance merely imagine it to be you who climbed on General Lamarque’s funeral hearse?_  
_ Our Lady mother prays you put thoughts of revolution far from your mind. You cannot imagine how forlornly she has sat by her window while we did not have word from you. ‘My son has been killed’, she announced promptly before fainting. I expect a swift and heartfelt note from your hand would do well to soothe her nerves._

_Do be certain to make things right with father, Félix. I should hate to be forbidden from writing to you in the future, and he says he will be content if you host some of his Paris acquaintances at your lodgings. I concur that strengthening the family’s capital connections will surely prove beneficial in the coming months._

_Ever your favorite and most affectionate sister,_  
_ Élodie_

For a long while, Courfeyrac considers consigning his father’s words to the fire. Élodie’s letter is sorted into the box she sent along with her very first verses from home. It had arrived in Paris even before Courfeyrac’s carriage had. Pacing does nothing to make up his mind, so his feet take him further across Paris until he finds the wretched crowds clamoring outside the Hôtel Dieu. Courfeyrac waves to the portier with his hat, who ushers him through and orders him to shut the door behind him firmly if he intends to go to the basement.

Combeferre sits hunched over a bit of flesh, his spectacles threatening to fall from the tip of his nose. He looks up when he hears Courfeyrac enter. “I have had word from home,” he confesses.

“You are the first of us,” Combeferre sighs, rolling his shoulders and looking expectant. Courfeyrac shoves his father’s letter at Combeferre. The content of Élodie’s, he keeps to himself for the moment. “I expect my father has not heard of it yet, so deeply provincial does he reside. Adelaide has her nose ever in Paris’ gossip, undoubtedly she will catch wind of what has happened before very long and then I will receive a diatribe of hitherto inconceivable magnitude. ”

He pauses to scan the brisk, formal note.

“But you have not lived in the apartments he purchased for you in years,” Combeferre furrows his brows. “Not since we have made our acquaintance, at the very least.”

“Just so.” Courfeyrac bites at his thumb, unable to stop pacing even now. Usually, Combeferre’s presence is enough of a comfort to drain his restlessness posthaste. “My own rooms are hardly suitable to lodge his Paris acquaintances.”

“You need not follow his orders,” Combeferre points out. “Are you not your own man? Did you not make choices of your own volition?”

“And yet I rely on the man’s coin while my studies are not completed.”

“A bright young man such as you would readily find work. Did not your professor approach you about assisting on a case recently?”

“Oh, very well,” Courfeyrac huffs petulantly. “I could do without his coin, but I should hate for any future missives to Élodie to go unanswered.”

Combeferre hums, turning back to his heap of flesh.

“What is that you are studying?” Courfeyrac asks.

“The lungs of a young boy lost to consumption,” Combeferre explains as he clears away some scraps which have disconnected from the main lump upon inspection.

“Fascinating,” Courfeyrac lies, feeling his own bowels turn. Combeferre laughs, though he is good enough to at least try and hide it.  
“You did ask.”

“I never learn,” Courfeyrac sighs, daring to step closer and peer over Combeferre’s shoulder for a moment. “Has the White Plague’s cause been elucidated to your eyes?”

“The tissue is almost cheese-like in consistency - it is really rather fascinating, if you wanted to have a closer look.”

“I have not your scientific eye.”

“No,” Combeferre agrees, standing to wash his hands in the corner’s basin. “Though I wonder at a man who shirks not from bayoneting his fellow citizen but recoils at the sight of dead flesh.”

“Diseased flesh.” Courfeyrac ruffles his nose. “Even the most fearsome warrior turns from the sight of mankind’s great plagues. Your whole laboratory reeks of decay. Death by blade is the more merciful, surely.”

“Perhaps there is some truth to men being battle-crazed,” Combeferre adds. “I did not take you for one of them. Yet you took to the blade with astounding ease.”

“Naturally.” Courfeyrac crosses his arms. “My father had me trained in combat, as any good, noble son ought to be.”

  
Combeferre takes a deep breath. “I could not do it,” he whispers. “My hands were made to heal. I could not use them to a purpose so diametrically opposed to my oaths.”

“Because you are the more noble of us two, no matter what my hated title may proclaim,” Courfeyrac smiles.

“All the while I could not help but feel that the soldiers did not truly wish to fight us.”

“Perhaps. Yet they did fight us, so I do not regret my participation,” Courfeyrac reveals. “Only I wish my blade had been able to pierce those directly responsible for France’s suffering, rather than their paid shields.”

Combeferre does not engage in this topic further, seemingly satisfied with what he has prompted from Courfeyrac. “I have read some interesting letters from Stockholm recently, or rather my professor has. They wonder at miasma possibly causing such lesions,” he says instead, gesturing to the lung tissue.

“Cheese-like?” Courfeyrac supplies, resisting the urge to make a most descriptive face.

“You see, Courfeyrac,” Combeferre begins as he dries his hands, “I have given miasma much thought. If it were truly bad air which caused consumption, why are the lesions isolated?”

“I am not sure I follow.”

“Assuming the lung is evenly ventilated, which I will take as fair to assume, why does consumption sprout only such circular, cheese-like lesions? What makes the bad air infiltrate the lungs in such a manner, rather than evenly? Are they weakened spots? And if so, why? Consumption of the lung invariably forms these circular lesions - reliably enough that we diagnose the sickness post-mortem by the characteristics of the injury.”

“Ah,” Courfeyrac at last understands. “You have taken this as proof of your animalcules?”

Combeferre smiles brightly at him, nodding, before his smile dims again. “Air is indiscriminate. Little creatures, however, only destroy where they land. They are unfortunately also much harder to find than creatures of conventional size.”

“I thought such findings had already been reported?”

“Not in consumptive material, not with certainty. We should require something to mark the little creatures, as one would collar a dog. As of yet I have not succeeded.”

“What says your professor to this?”

“I have not yet told him,” Combeferre sighs. “He did not order me to study consumption so that I may be ridiculed by the Académie for upsetting their miasma-consensus.”

“Instead you are to do what?”

“He wishes me to find out if it may be spread as a venereal disease is.”

“Truly?”

“By contagion, I mean to say.” Combeferre corrects the position of his glasses anew. “Those poor souls in Paris’ poorest parts live ten to a room. One of them drops of consumption and soon others follow. He means to present my findings as a call for public measures against the spread.”

“That is quite admirable.”

“He doubtless means to garner glory with it, but yes, in a way his ambitions are admirable. But what of you, Courfeyrac? What of your ambitions?”

“I find myself uncertain of what I ought to do.”

“There is always the option of an advantageous marriage, if you feel threatened by a purse unduly lightened.”

Courfeyrac bristles at the wording. “I will not. Do not mock me.”

“Another kind of connection then. You are not incapable of forming them, nor are you so reliant on your father that you must obey his command to ingratiate yourself with his friends if you do not wish it.”

“They offer advantages.”

“What do you care for wealth or position?”

“Nothing,” Courfeyrac admits. “But I have an idea now, Combeferre.”

“And what idea is that?”

“I shall tell you once I have ensured it is feasible. Good luck with your consumptive lungs, dear friend.”

**III. What May Come ‘Erelong**

  
Enjolras walks confidently arm-in-arm with Courfeyrac as they cross Paris to seek out the young Pontmercy recently established in a splendid mansion, provided by rich progenitors on both sides of the family tree.  
There was a time when Enjolras detested being offered an arm, when he took it for an unwelcome attempt at chivalry rather than a gesture of friendship. Those days are long past and Courfeyrac is glad that in such proximity, there is no need to raise one’s voice to be heard, so that he may relate his plans to Enjolras as they walk without fearing being overheard.

  
“A ball?” Pontmercy’s brow furrows, his expression turns quizzical. “What reforms may possibly be pushed through on a dance floor?”

  
Enjolras, who has not taken a seat in favor of closely analyzing the well-stocked Pontmercy library, turns around to answer. “Courfeyrac is convinced that a masquerade ball is the only feasible cover for a clandestine meeting between barricade leaders. Conveniently, it also allows him to host his father’s friends and sway them with his manifold charms.”

  
“We are so often watched,” Pontmercy agrees thoughtfully. “A masquerade, you say?”

  
Courfeyrac nods. “I shall have to find a way to pass along a message of intent to Monsieur Jeanne, as well as instructions on how he may recognize the man he so exigently wishes to conspire with.”

“Truthfully, my friends,” Marius hesitates for a while, avoiding Enjolras’ eyes by ducking his head. “I had thought us all past such intrigues.”

“You are very welcome to withdraw your support from our cause,” Enjolras offers, his arms crossed. “Let it not be said that I should force any man to go against his principles.”

  
“No!” Marius is quick to defend himself. “No, that is not what I meant at all! I do believe in what you mean to achieve – of course I do, I fought with you, after all. But now that we have the opportunity to petition the king directly, should we not seek to convince him in a matter which does not mock the law?”

  
Courfeyrac takes a long sip, glancing towards Enjolras to see if the man wishes to make a rebuttal. It does not seem so: he merely glares at Pontmercy. Thus it falls to Courfeyrac to explain, “We do not believe that the king means to hear what we have to say. Your wish to convince the nobility by way of impassioned speeches is honorable, but the trouble with it is that it does not work. Few men still believe that they are granted superiority over others by God anymore – such earnest naivety is not easy to maintain in a world which has changed as ours has. No, they surely know that they maintain their position only by exploiting the wretched – you will not convince such men with pretty words, I fear.”

  
Silence reigns absolute for a beat, then Enjolras looks up from the volume he pulled from Marius’ shelves. “Though, of course, you are welcome to try, Pontmercy.”

  
“I plan to,” Marius announces. “I need only finish my study of the law, then the path to join the corps legislatif may be set into motion. When I spoke of this with Courfeyrac he assured me he intended to pursue a similar path.”

  
“Such goals require long-term planning,” Courfeyrac sighs, “And their fruit takes so long to ripen that I should die of starvation if I do not seek nourishment elsewhere. At present, what I may do is assure that two like-minded individuals may discuss their ideas without fearing battery by the city’s ínspectors.”

Marius considers his words a while.  
“Have you given thought to where you will host this masquerade?”

  
“There are some town halls which lend themselves—“

  
“No,” interrupts Marius, entirely ignoring Enjolras' look of irritation. “You cannot do so at a public ball, you run too great a risk of being infiltrated by inspectors undercover.”

  
“We have considered that risk—“

  
“Hold it here,” Marius offers, bringing all men present, including himself, up short. But once he has expressed the notion, he seems to take to it. “Cosette will love it, surely! Our wedding ceremony was a small affair, after all. This wil serve as the proper introduction of our union into Paris’ society. My grandfather has been clamoring for something like this. I do believe he started a correspondence with your father, even.”

  
“Courfeyrac’s progenitors would certainly approve,” Enjolras shrugs, looking towards Courfeyrac for confirmation.

  
“That’s very good of you, Pontmercy.”

  
Marius nods a couple of times.  
“See that no one is murdered in my house.”

**IV. What We Shall Achieve**

  
In the days following the barricades, Grantaire has become a hard man to track down. Having been well-acquainted with the cynic for years now, Courfeyrac knows which hidey holes to check; they are plentiful, and yet Grantaire is not to be found anywhere.

  
Courfeyrac bribes three youngsters from the street until at last they direct him to Paris’ outskirts, where it is said Grantaire is visiting an aunt. The lady herself is not in house when Courfeyrac means to call on them, but Grantaire sits in the garden and stares morosely at two young children play-fighting on the grass.

  
“Your cousins?” Courfeyrac initiates conversation after it appears that Grantaire will offer only a curt greeting. His face betrays nothing, not even the irritation Courfeyrac anticipated.

  
“No relations of mine,” Grantaire denies. “My aunt fosters a great many strays. These two, I believe, are orphans of her erstwhile tenants - country bumpkins out of their depths so close to a city. They have habitually gotten into trouble since their arrival and now think to take their excess energy out on one another.”

  
“Clever,” Courfeyrac observes.

  
“Hardly,” Grantaire scoffs. “There is little evidence of a clever mind behind such brutishness.”

  
“And yet you are gifted with quick wits.”

  
This causes but a small twitch of Grantaire’s lips. He quickly sobers once more to ask, “Why do you call on my aunt? I do not believe you were ever introduced. Do you seek scandal?”

  
“Surely you know I come seeking you?”

  
“You suppose that flatters me?”

  
“I shall lay it on more thickly if I must, Grantaire,” Courfeyrac leans back against the porch. The wood along his back feels too smooth, too polished, too deliberately placed. His father had their porch treated to sanding so that the wood would appear aged, near mythical, as though every miniscule detail of their ancestral seat had not been meticulously planned and crafted. He had meant to convey ancient age on a new structure, parallels to a centuries old lineage once more come into prosperity by his hand. Courfeyrac had grown used to leaning against such uncomfortable largesse. “You know Charles Jeanne,” he prompts, tearing himself away from thoughts of architecture.

  
“Take care not to proclaim such connections too loudly, friend. Monsieur Jeanne is not currently what one would call a desirable acquaintace."

  
“I require a message to reach him. The police watch me and I cannot seek him out myself."

  
“They’ll have followed you here."

  
“I came disguised."

  
“Clever.”  
“Hardly,” Courfeyrac mocks. “I neglected to bring my top hat and this coat is of one of my very early seasons in Paris. I lent it to Pontmercy once. It still smells of his cologne, do you know?”

  
“I did not know our baron was prosperous enough to afford a signature scent now."

  
“His wife picked it out, so I am told."

  
Grantaire makes a show of leaning closer and sniffing. “It is pleasant enough, I suppose. She has good taste in that, if not in men.”

  
“Will you do it?”  
“Will I deliver a message to Monsieur Jeanne for you, you mean?”  
“You know I do.”

  
“I will not.” Grantaire sighs, then adds: “I am sorry, though."

  
Courfeyrac crosses his arms, watches Grantaire shakily pick up his cup of tea and empty it. To Courfeyrac he appears very old at that moment, though his years are not yet thirty. “You should know he did not mean it.”

  
“He rarely says what he does not mean. I cannot recall having ever heard the man recant.”

  
Grantaire pauses, looks at the young boys again. They have stopped tumbling about, instead inspecting some poor animal captured in the smaller boy’s hands. Occasionally their giggles grow louder and reach Courfeyrac’s ears, though they are far from his mind and soon fade again.

  
“But then you know him better,” Grantaire concedes. Courfeyrac wants to deny the claim.  
“He looked for you after the barricades were dismantled.”

  
“I was injured. Joly took me to have my head sewn up.”

  
“So the man himself informed us shortly thereafter. He looked for you at your lodgings.”

  
“I had left word that I intended to go see my aunt.”

  
“Not with him. He was distraught.”

  
“Let him. I do not much wish to see Enjolras, presently.”

  
“Then how do you expect him to apologize? Shall he send you a letter?”

  
“I care not for his apology – it would be perfunctory. You should know, Courfeyrac, that his words only cut me so deeply because I knew them to be true.”

  
“Stubbornness,” Courfeyrac realizes. “That is why you will not do us this service?”

  
“Give the letter to an urchin. They adore Monsieur Jeanne, the whole of them. He lets them eat at his table when they come by.”

  
“You ramble like an old man, Grantaire.”

  
“I am weary,” he confirms.

  
“There was a time when you wished nothing more than to prove yourself to Enjolras.”

  
Grantaire says nothing. “This would surely go a long way towards that goal,” Courfeyrac continues.

  
Now Grantaire scoffs. “Pride.”  
“I beg your pardon?”

  
“‘Tis not stubbornness which halts my participation; it is pride, Courfeyrac. He holds me in contempt and so I favor my self-imposed exile to whining at his feet for attention like some runt.” Grantaire refills his cup of tea, holds another one to Courfeyrac and shrugs when the offer is declined.

  
“And if he did not know?”

  
“I had assumed he sent you.” Grantaire’s focus is ostensibly on his cup of tea, but Courfeyrac can nearly see the tension on the man. His thoughts are certainly with Enjolras at the moment.

  
“Then you have it wrong, friend. Enjolras sees the future he wants but the art of subterfuge is lost entirely on him. Organization is best left to me and he knows this.”

  
“You will not tell him?”

  
“He will not ask.”

  
“That is not an answer to the question I asked.”

  
“I will not tell him.” Enjolras scarcely does ask, habitually only in the case of mishaps.

  
Wordlessly, Grantaire holds his hand out for the letter.

  
“Return to the city with me,” Courfeyrac attempts to beguile the man, but it is to no avail.

  
“That would obviate your carefully crafted subterfuge.” Grantaire pauses for a beat. “Prouvaire has called for revelries at the Musain two days from now. I will see you then, and we may both lmock the prefecture’s pathetic attempt at undercover work.”

**V. Has Now Been Gone Too Long**

  
“Charles,” Grantaire calls out and smiles genially as he shakes the readily extended hand of Charles Jeanne’s right hand man, who swiftly excuses himself, pleading a bad injury and an impending visit to the Hôtel Dieu. Such is the nature of him – bawdy, audacious Grantaire, always up for a bottle, always up for a laugh. Monsieur Jeanne looks up from his reading material, but a smile comes over his face swiftly to replace to look of irritation upon being interrupted. A second hand is extended to Grantaire.

  
“Now here is a man I thought I should never see again.” Jeanne motions for Grantaire to have a seat. “What brings you to a haunt you abandoned long ago? As I recall you traded one Republican hall for a more luminous one.”

  
“Paris’ candles burn the same in every café.”

  
“One would be forgiven for thinking thus,” Jeanne agrees. “But you have been given to speak of a light capable of illuminating the darkest night, comparable only to the sun itself.”

  
Grantaire frowns.  
“I jest,” Jeanne placates. “Do you still play?”

  
“I cannot help myself." Grantaire takes a domino in his hand, turns it over and over, takes comfort in the smooth texture of the piece. “What shall we play for?”

  
“You could pay me in stories – I do so miss hearing your wildly spun tales.”

  
“It seems to me you alone hanker for those days.”

  
Charles Jeanne smiles, sets his book down completely. “Truth be told, old friend: I worry for you.”

  
“That is good of you.”

  
“As I worry for the light that has been lost in you,” he continues. “I recall a Grantaire who had scarcely reached his majority when he took to the streets with us. A bright light in his own right, that Grantaire was. Whatever happened to him?”

  
The sad truth is that both of them know what happened, so neither man gives an answer. But Charles Jeanne holds his stare until Grantaire cannot hold off on saying something any longer. “Even the brightest candles burn out. Wax is finite, as is spirit. Spirits, however--”

  
“And what of suns?”

  
Grantaire pauses.  
“Undoubtedly if the sun were to fade it would plunge the world into darkness. I confess I have little knowledge of astronomy.”

  
“Nor I,” Charles Jeanne admits. “Yet I fear the same. It is hard to find one’s way without a guiding light.”

  
Grantaire makes a noise of affirmation.

  
“Will it?”  
Now he looks up at Charles, who looks at him quite intently. There remains upon his face the affectation of a concerned friend, but that friend has been warped by time into a man whose concern extends over the whole of France, nay, perhaps all the wretched of the earth. Grantaire is quite familiar with such a look.

  
“Your sun,” Charles reiterates. “Will it burn out, do you think? Will we find ourselves plunged into darkness?”

  
“I cannot presume to know the fate of a star. Such divination is limited by my humanity.”

  
Jeanne hums. He lays down a domino.  
“In any case,” Grantaire cannot resist adding, “Astrology is quack - did we not agree? Astra inclinant, sed non obligant, we make our own fate. You were very insistent upon that particular point.”

  
“Sometimes, Grantaire, I wonder if it was the sun that drained you of your own light,” Charles Jeanne forays ahead, unperturbed by Grantaire’s cosmical cynicism.

  
“You would call me dim?”

  
The joke does not land.

  
“It is concern for you which moves me.” Said concern is not exclusive to Grantaire, without a doubt. It nonetheless gives the appearance of being sincere.

  
“If I could but be so moved,” Grantaire sighs, continuing the game. “Allow me to assuage your worries: I have been staying in the shade as of late.”

  
“And has that improved your condition?”

  
Grantaire takes his time to answer, which to him is a novel experience, but he has not considered formulating his innermost thoughts on this matter before. Not honestly, at least. “A funny thing,” he finally settles on.

  
“As many things are – which do you mean precisely?”

  
“That one is liable to burn when too long exposed to the sun, but that all living things wither without it.”  
Jeanne’s look is pitiful.

  
“You wither in the shade?”

  
“So I do. And yet I fear burning too much to step within the sun’s light once more.”

  
“Perhaps swap Apollo for Diana then, and bask in the moon’s gentler light.”

  
Grantaire understands the words for what they are.

  
“A pale imitation,” he laments. “The moon gives off no warmth of its own, has no light of its own. It makes beasts of men if they are not careful.”

  
“Then perhaps you must reignite yourself.”

  
“One wise accountant, in his passionate, young years, told me that I ought not to set myself on fire to keep others warm.”

  
“Was he charming, this accountant friend of yours?”

  
“Not at all,” Grantaire huffs, realizing that he is on the brink of losing.

  
“It would appear I am owed a story,” Jeanne announces when, at long length, he wins.

  
“Let us not pretend that you truly enjoy the ramblings of a wine-crazed soul. I have something better for you.”

  
Beneath the table, out of sight from the café’s other patrons, Grantaire slides Courfeyrac’s letter to Jeanne.  
“Why would this require sealing?”

  
“It is not from me,” Grantaire reveals. “Surely you guessed as much?”

  
“A mutual friend?”

  
Grantaire raises a brow.

  
“I dare say this requires immediate studying. You will have to excuse me,” Charles apologizes. He stoops to press Grantaire’s hand fondly.

  
“You may thank me from having saved you from your accounting books for a few hours with a bottle of wine,” Grantaire calls after him. “This one is empty!”

**VI. Lost By Time, Lost at Sea**

  
The knock on his door is not a surprise, nor is Enjolras’ face when Grantaire opens the door to him. What is something of a surprise are the first words to leave his mouth, for Grantaire expected them to involve Courfeyrac. Instead, Enjolras frowns and says: “I saw your candle burning by the window.”

Come to think of it, there is something strange to Enjolras face. Uncertainty looms on his features, a sentiment that has become unfamiliar to Grantaire, replaced early on in their acquantaince by the knowledge that Grantaire would always welcome him here. To see it reappear so foreign upsets Grantaire. Still-

“You were on a late-night stroll in a corner of Paris so far from your own lodgings? My, you must have a great deal on your mind.”

  
Enjolras ignores that aside. “May I come in, Grantaire?”

  
Grantaire hesitates, but gives in nonetheless. It is hard to deny Enjolras, most especially when earnestness spills from the man as though it were a fifth, hitherto unknown humor, eternally out of balance and impossible to correct without greatly harming the patient.

  
“Oh!” Enjolras removes his coat immediately. “How warm it is in here. I had almost forgotteen.”

  
“Summer months are not kind to top floor tenants.”

  
“Indeed,” Enjolras agrees readily. “Combeferre too rents a room beneath the roof and it is nigh unbearable there past midday.”

  
“That explains why the man spends his days holed up in his laboratory. I should bet my finest bottle that it is cold beneath the earth. As for me, I will wait some years yet before I find out for certain.”

  
“I have never been to see him at the Hôtel Dieu. Courfeyrac would be sure to know.”

  
“Certainly.”

  
“Is that why you left Paris?” The attempt is pathetic, but Grantaire feels compelled to humor Apollo.

  
“Because of the heat?” Grantaire asks incredulously. “Do not shame yourself by pretending you believe that.”  
Enjolras shrugs.

"I fear if not the heat, then it was my actions that drove you from Paris."

  
“Can I offer you anything?”

  
“I wish to apologize to you,” Enjolras starts, crumpling his hat when his hands clench anxiously into fists.

  
“I am afraid I do not stock that type of grape,” Grantaire retorts drily. He earns himself a scathing look for it. “Will champagne do?”

  
“My words at the barricade to you, they were unkind—”

  
“Perhaps they were,” Grantaire agrees. “You are forgiven.”

  
“You did not let me finish.”

  
“Because I know what you mean to say and I would have you save your breath.”

  
“May I be permitted to explain myself?”

  
Grantaire turns away from Enjolras’ earnest eyes, frantically searching for the nearest bottle. Enjolras must take his silence as permission granted and begins. “You were drunk-”

  
“I am always drunk,” Grantaire throws in carelessly, irritated by his fruitless search for intoxicants. In a manner the acute lack of drink renders his previous statement false. The prospect of being thus labeled dishonest is incredibly unappealing. “That is an old frustration for us both.”

  
“You are not drunk now.”

  
“Are you certain of that?”

  
“I cannot smell it on you.” Enjolras does have the nose of a bloodhound. One whiff of a flower in passing is enough for him to make the genus. Grantaire joked once that perhaps it is because of his keen olfactory abilities that he does not pause to appreciate petals in bloom as Grantaire does. He had earned only confusion.

  
“Believe me if I could be drunk at the moment I would be – only I cannot find a single fucking bottle. Curse Joly, he must have pilfered them. Musichetta has expensive tastes in wine, you must know...”

  
“Grantaire..."

  
“Enjolras?”

  
“You were drunk and I was afraid for you. They could have easily killed you in your state, formidable fighter though you may be.”

  
This gives Grantaire pause, but not for very long. “If I am incapable of dying I see not what you have to fear. Quite the oxymoron, however, considering my additional inability to live. What can I do but drink? That was the one thing you would not deny was in the realm of my capabilities.”

  
“I ought not to have said that.”

  
“Yet you did. And do not tell me you did not mean it – you damn near said the same after the Barrière du Maine.”

  
“You were playing dominoes!”

  
“Aye, so I was. Did it not occur to you that one might indoctrinate Republicans one on one? Is that so hard to believe?”

  
“Is that what you were doing?”

  
“Not by the time you looked in one me, no.”

  
“Then how—”

  
“They did not wish to fight, Enjolras. You cannot force men to take up arms. We have discussed this, you preach often enough that each man must choose to fight for what he believes in--”

  
“But you did not fight, you were drunk! You said you believed in me and yet you showed up drunk.”

  
“Joly and Lesgles were besides their own wits and you had not a scathing remark to spare them after you castigated me. I begged you to let me remain by your side and you wished me gone. Now you have come to complain that I left?”

  
“No,” Enjolras exhales loudly, deflating a little. “I have come to apologize.”

  
“There is nothing to apologize for.”

  
Enjolras reaches for his hand.  
“Grantaire, please—”

  
“It speaks volumes about the goodness of your heart that you wished to set things right. Are we done?”

  
“Are we?”

  
“I can think of nothing more to say.”

  
Enjolras nods, though he looks saddened. He accepts a cup of water from Grantaire.

  
“I hear you have also received an invitation to Pontmercy’s revelries?”

  
Grantaire nods towards the decorative envelope on his kitchen table.

  
“He says it will be a masked ball. Have you given any thought to your disguise?”

  
“I require none,” Grantaire scoffs. “I will drape myself in my bedsheet and by nine you will find me fast asleep in a wine barrel emptied by my own blind ambition to drink myself into the next stupor – I will be Dionysus.”

  
“A poor costume.”

  
“The notice is short. I did not have sufficient time to prepare another one. Dionysus is my most practiced act.”

  
“One cannot help but point out that it is not your best,” Enjolras comments, still appearing for all the world as though someone mortally wounded him. He is not so adept at putting on a brave face in front of Grantaire when they go head to head in matters relating to the heart. Still, he persists in attempting a jest, now that it has become clear Grantaire wil not to,erafe the subject of the barricade any longer.

  
“What is my best act, in your opinion?”

  
Enjolras’ cheek ticks. Grantaire realizes too late that he has been baited.

  
“I enjoyed your Robespierre, I must admit.”

  
“I have no trouble believing that. You would have me play the revolutionary for Pontmercy and Courfeyrac’s royal connections?”

  
The corner of Enjolras’ mouth rises. Now he almost smiles - it is a beautiful thing to behold time and time again.  
“The red waistcoat,” Enjolras claims. “I would have you wear that, so that I may recognize you.”

  
“To what end?”

  
“Do not play dumb, Grantaire.”

  
“Another horrid act of mine?”

  
“The worst, quite possibly.”

  
“Very well, then,” Grantaire decides. “The red waistcoat.”  
Enjolras squeezes his hand in parting, then ducks out of the door.

**VII. To Awake In Me That Song**

  
Regrettably, Grantaire had neglected to ask Enjolras by what means he ought to recognize, if he is not recognized. For a brief instance, he thinks the matter taken care of, for just as soon as he enters the Pontmercy estate, he finds himself pulled to the side and unmasked by a young man. He does not even have the time to take in all the lavish finery with which the hall is decked out, only catches glimpses of candlelight and silks. The decorations amount to more expenses than a poor artist as Grantaire can with good conscience incur in his lifetime, but he does not think they amount to much in the grand scheme of the Pontmercy funds. 

  
“Thank God,” the man exhales before Grantaire even regains his bearings.  
Just as swiftly the possibility of this being Enjolras dwindles to zero. The man is much too broad in the shoulders, though the height seems appropriate. When he speaks, it is to say: “We must change costumes,” and his voice is lower than anything he has heard from Enjolras’ lips.

  
“Pardon?”

  
Charles Jeanne pulls his mask over his head, a frantic look in his eyes.

  
“Whatever are you doing here?”

  
“I was invited, of course,” Charles huffs. “I am not so much the wildling that I would burst in unannounced.”

  
“Are you mad? To come out of hiding for this frivolity--”

  
“I did not notice until I arrived – the police have followed me here. One of the urchins informed me they come with a warrant for my arrest. I must take flight. Just as I feared I would not make it out of here My eye was caught by a beautiful waistcoat I remember gifting a dear friend."

  
“Yes, very well.” Grantaire pulls him along until they come upon a room deserted. “Simply tell me what atrocity you have garbed yourself in.”

  
“Courfeyrac ordered it, in the letter you delivered. He did not feel compelled to inform me which of the Greeks I portray tonight. I am to meet with someone important--”

  
“You wish for me to meet with this person in your place?”

  
“Primarily I wish to escape the police with my life, tonight.”

  
“Admirable goals,” Grantaire commends, handing over the red waistcoat. “I wish for that one to return to me. You may keep the rest.”

  
“I will see it done,” Charles promises. He pauses, then adds: “They may arrest you in my place, I should warn you.”

  
“I would rather me than you,” Grantaire says distractedly. “They can hardly hang me for wearing clothes which are not my own. They may very well hang you for treason from some tree in the King’s vast forests if they get their hands on you. And even if they make short work of me, what matters it? The revolution will live on, will it not? As long as both sun and moon continue unhindered.”

  
“Ah,” Jeanne smiles. “Is that a light I see reignited?”

  
“Your eyes are playing tricks on you,” Grantaire dismisses. “Pray that I play you convincingly enough to that you may slip out of here unmolested, my friend.”

  
Jeanne refastens his mask and leaves the room on lighter feet than he entered. Grantaire holds five minutes, studies his new mask in a looking glass. He has little of Jeanne’s posture, even if their statues are similar. It is a hard thing, to walk as though the burden you shoulder weighs nothing at all. But Grantaire forces himself upright, takes a deep breath and leaves the room.  
He does not get far. A hand at his elbow stops him. The masked stranger who intercepted him nods, on his lips is a friendly smile. Out of habit, Grantaire returns the gesture. “A dance?”

  
This stranger is garbed in a Greek drapery not unlike the costume Charles just foisted off on him, though his is a deep red whereas Grantaire is wearing a green he would describe as rich if pressed to analyze it by Gros or some other mentor nearly forgotten. Undoubtedly this is the man Charles was set to meet. Now it is for Grantaire to play the part accordingly.

  
Grantaire’s eyes sweep the room, where women have paired up just as men have. “You may have one, for a start.”

  
“Are you a friend of Pontmercy’s?” He asks the stranger.

  
“I know it is an odd place to set up a meeting,” the masked stranger admits. “But I am nonetheless glad Courfeyrac’s instructions reached you in time. Do you know how to waltz?”

  
“Yes,” Grantaire nods, bewildered. The stranger sweeps him into the movements with such ease that it confounds him momentarily. Something about him strikes Grantaire as deeply familiar. Their movements are too smooth together - looking at them, any bystander would think them long practiced partners in dance.

  
“You wished to discuss the delegation to meet the king?”

  
Grantaire starts, “We require more than one dance to discuss such things.”

  
“I quite agree,” the stranger whispers. “It was you who put the constraint on time.”

  
Commotion at the door interrupts the music for a beat, before the conductor continues, undeterred. Courfeyrac and Pontmercy both have removed their masks and are arguing with what appears to be half of the Paris prefecture.

  
“They come here for you,” the masked stranger says.  
“Quite likely.”

  
Grantaire watches as Pontmercy leads the men from the main hall, Courfeyrac following swiftly. A woman Grantaire assumes to be the much talked about Cosette speaks to the orchestre, who swiftly start a new piece.

  
“I cannot join the delegation,” the stranger keeps his voice low when he reveals as much.

  
“Why ever not?”

  
“I say this to you in confidence, Monsieur: legal issues prevent it.”

  
“Legal—?”  
At that moment it dawns on Grantaire who he is dancing with. He ought to have known. Those damned fools, setting up a meeting amidst Paris’ elite, where they could be overheard by anyone. Though, he supposes, with Enjolras leaning so close, there is little chance of their words falling on any unintended ears. But Enjolras does not know whom he talks with.

  
“Courfeyrac, however—”

  
“Are the police not also watching him? What is to stop them from hanging him right alongside the rest of the delegation? If legal issues prevent you, surely the same prevent him--”

  
“We have plans to draw a crowd outside the palace, a peaceful crowd, mind, but enough to put pressure on the monarchy to behave itself.”

  
“Their armies are greater,” Grantaire argues. They saw it for themselves, when they challenged Louis-Philippe on the streets. If they had been forced to hold out, they could not have. Not for very long, at least.

  
“Paris is waking up,” Enjolras insists.

  
“She rises groggy as a drunkard – disoriented.”

  
“Angry at being woken, perhaps, and yet unable to return to slumber.”

  
“You have faith in her people.”

  
“I do. Courfeyrac believes you share that faith. Are we to be disappointed in our hopes?”

  
“The delegation will end in slaughter if the king thinks to employ his troops,” Grantaire warns. And what is to stop him? What cause has a king to do but what he is wont to?

  
“He would have another revolution on his hands. Courfeyrac has talked to the washerwomen. Others I trust have convinced mothers to bring their children. It would be slaughter and Monsieur Capet would be ostracized for it. I dare say the Bourbons have cause to fear a violent uprising."

  
“Monsieur Capet?” Grantaire laughs in disbelief. “Oh, but you are bold. Tell me, is it the mask that makes you so or do you simply not fear repercussions?”

  
“What say you to the plan?”

  
“Equally bold, but I concede it may prove more effective leverage than furniture.”  
The music comes to a stop.

  
“Thus the dance is ended.”

  
Enjolras nods, then pulls him away from the main hall.  
“We have further things to discuss.”

**VIII. With Open Eyes I Take My Chance**

  
“The documents are real, I can assure you,” the inspector sneers at Marius when he frowns at the writing, smudged slightly by virtue of this particular king’s servant’s fervent desire to hold onto it tightly with sweaty hands.

  
“This is a private event,” Marius sighs. “I do not wish for any trouble.”

  
“Nor I,” the inspector claims. “I cannot imagine you invited the fiend.”

  
“All guests showed their invitation upon entry, Sir. Charles Jeanne is not here,” Cosette shows the man their list. “By what right can we unmask all of our guests if we guaranteed them anonymity amidst the night’s revelries?”

  
“We saw him enter.”

  
“Everyone is masked,” Courfeyrac feigns confusion. “How on earth can you make a man wearing a mask?”

  
“We know what he wears,” insists the inspector. “One of my men saw the traitor make his way here.”

  
Marius puts the warrant down. Courfeyrac is sorely tempted to snatch the odious piece of paper and burn it. “What will happen to Monsieur Jeanne, should you find him here?” He says instead, to buy time. “I believed Monsieur le Roi issued temporary pardons to every man involved with the barricades.”

  
Courfeyrac catches Marius glance at his pocketwatch, sees the man hold up five fingers inconspicuously. But what if Charles Jeanne has not realized the arrival of the law? How much time may they buy him?

  
“I hate to spoil the festivities, Monsieur de Courfeyrac,” the inspector smarms. “But we must arrest the traitor. It will be quick, I assure you.”

  
Cosette presses a hand to her chest. She leans on Marius, her eyes full of concern.  
“Madame,” the inspector soothes her, “You need not worry that your husband or his friend will face the King’s wrath. He knows they were only misguided; King Louis-Philippe would only see irredeemable agitators sent to the gallows, for he is a merciful man.”

  
The inspector lowers his voice: “There is also the matter of the senior Monsieur de Courfeyrac - he has pledged the King a great sum if he will turn a blind eye to your misdeeds. I can assure you, you will not face any troubles from us in the future, messieurs. Simply allow me to arrest Charles Jeanne. He must hang for what he has done.”

  
“Very well,” Courfeyrac pretends to agree.

  
“Excellent!” the inspector rejoices, rubbing his hands together. “May one of you volunteer to lead me back to the dance hall? I am afraid the corridors are rather intricate."

  
“I’ll lead the way,” Marius offers. As he passes Courfeyrac, he raps the sheath of Courfeyrac’s knife meaningfully. Cosette takes Marius’ arm. They begin to chat pleasantly. Some men, though they abhor violence, occasionally see the necessity of it. Such was the case when Marius saved his life on the barricade, though it was a near thing. Now perhaps they may save a new friend.

  
Strategically, Marius takes a long detour to the main hall. Cosette laughs loud enough for Courfeyrac’s blade to be drawn silently.

  
He has never considered himself a murderer, but there are some things a man cannot turn away from. If he allows them to have Charles Jeanne, what remains of the barricade fighters will crumble. They may take each Republican one by one until even the most moderate of them have been picked off. And who would stop them? Who would dare, after such an example had been made? No conscientuous man can allow that. Courfeyrac begins to lift the blade--

  
A strong hand on his shoulder. Cold runs down his back, but then Combeferre’s voice is at his ear. “Put the blade down, Félix.”

  
“You know what he will do – hang him up for spectacle. They did it to Hofer, they did it to the brave men of Ariège. They will do it to Jeanne if we allow the opportunity to fall into their hands.”

  
“There is no need,” Combeferre assures him. “Jeanne spotted the tail even as he came here. He left me a letter when I revealed myself to him. He is long gone. All of his supporters have gone underground until the day of the petition. Feuilly plans to use tonight’s story to draw even more support.”

  
“The King went back on his promise of amnesty," Courfeyrac realizes. "And all of France will know it. Even my father's connections will take offense to this. They will see it as a threat to their own safety."

  
“So he did, the coward,” Combeferre agrees, but he is smiling. “It may prove a fatal misstep.”

  
“I could kiss you,” Courfeyrac says so that he does not break into cheers then and there. "Remind me to persuade you to the contrary when later you tell me it is too risky to pass a night together." 

Combeferre smiles. 

  
“There he is,” the inspector tells Pontmercy, pointing straight at a man wearing the exact costume Courfeyrac issued for Charles Jeanne.

  
Throughout the course of the evening, the constraints which dictate the proceeding of a regular society ball have been loosened both by the free flow of wine and the anonymity provided by the costumes. Men dance with men and women hold each other close. Nonetheless, Courfeyrac can easily make out Orestes and Pylades as they dance. Pylades' head is bent, his lips move silently. Courfeyrac watches Enjolras nod, imagines that without the mask, he would see a thoughtful expression upon the man’s brow.

  
“There he is,” the inspector whispers to Marius. “I shall have my men extract him posthaste.”

  
Combeferre’s hand tenses on Courfeyrac’s elbow just as he is poised to move.  
“You would doubt my word?”

  
“Do my eyes deceive me, then?” Courfeyrac wonders. “I have heard much from you on the ethics of killing, Combeferre. Would you lie to me to stop my blade?”

  
“I would not abase myself so,” he vows, his deep voice close enough for Courfeyrac to feel his breath in the air between them. “That is not Charles Jeanne.”

  
Two men have grabbed Pylades, have torn him from Orestes, who is pushed away. He could disappear into the crowd, but he does not. Instead, his back straightens and he prepares to come to Pylades' aid if necessary.

  
“This man, Charles Jeanne-” the inspector announces to the crowd of concerned partygoers beginning to gather. “Has snuck into this fête to sew doubt of his Majesty’s love for his subjects in the hearts of all those present.”

  
Pylades remains perfectly still, does not struggle against the hold. As long as he does not, Orestes moves not.  
“I have in my hand a warrant, signed by the King’s own hand, granting me the right to arrest him.”

  
“And what of the amnesty granted him and those who fought with him?” Bahorel calls out from somewhere in the crowd. Courfeyrac is certain he recognizes the student’s voice.

  
The inspector pauses, his brows knit together. He is uncertain.  
“It is—”

  
“May we interpret this arrest as the King’s promise holding no worth?” Someone else shouts. This is an older voice which Courfeyrac cannot pretend to recognize.

  
“By what right—”

  
Multiple shouts drown in a sudden cacophony of noise. The two men holding Pylades obey the inspector’s order to take the man away. Were it not for a misplaced elbow, they may have taken him without trouble. But Pylades’ mask comes undone and Courfeyrac sees a face that, while familiar, is not the face of Charles Jeanne.

  
“Grantaire’s presence here,” Combeferre whispers, “Was certainly a surprise, though not, I will say, an unwelcome one.”

  
“And who are you?” The inspector, obviously having some idea what the man he has come to arrest looks like, asks Grantaire, who holds his silence admirably. Enjolras, too, removes his mask when Grantaire meets his eye. He looks crestfallen.

  
“You will not speak, is that right? Very well, we’ll make you speak yet. Take him with you.”  
Grantaire goes willingly.

**IX. Amidst the Shadows of the Land**

  
Grantaire does not expect to see Enjolras waiting for him, but still the man lurks in the shadows near the Seine when the prefecture releases him. His aunt had arrived early that morning, had furiously torn into the inspectors for arresting a man without warrant, without cause. She had vouched for his identity and quite put the fear of God back into the men. Then she had patted his cheek and returned to her house.

  
Now Enjolras waits for him. His red coat appears almost black – the moon has waned near completely, and Paris’ street lamps are not alight.

  
“Good evening,” he says.

  
“Morning, perhaps?” Grantaire compromises. “I see you have once more become French.”

  
“Close to, yes,” Enjolras nods, akcnowledging Grantaire’s second comment only by patting at his red coat. “Are you well?”

  
“Ah, they realized quickly they could glean no information from me. My body aches but a little, a tender touch will soon replenish me.”

  
“I am rather ashamed,” Enjolras murmurs.

  
“What cause has a proud Greek Prince to feel shame?"

  
“Because the prince did not recognize the soul irrevocably intertwined with his own, did not recognize you. I took you for Charles Jeanne.” He pauses. “I do not see how I could have, upon reflection.”

  
“My talents are manifold.”

  
“You made a very convincing revolutionary.”

  
“Did you not say you liked me that way? I regret to inform you Charles absconded with my Robespierre, leaving me a hapless Pylades."

  
“He said it wasn’t an act,” Enjolras retorts. “He told me you were much more the revolutionary than he was, a long time ago.”

  
“Have you been talking to God, Enjolras? Did the Lord Almighty bless your treacherous plans? Shall we argue that Louis-Philippe has not, after all, been raised to the throne by divine grace? My, we have truly reached a new era. ”

  
Enjolras smiles, offers Grantaire his arm. There is some hesitation in his eyes.“I do not pray. I only hope, as ever.”

  
“I know,” Grantaire says softly.

  
“Charles Jeanne,” Enjolras starts again. “He said—”

  
“Whatever he said was said of a man over a decade younger than I am.”

  
“I confess I knew some of your background from Bahorel, and from what you have let slip over the years. You mentioned nothing of plotting with him.”

  
“It came to nothing,” Grantaire dismisses. “Which is the only reason why I still live to waste Paris' scarce clean air."

  
“And you gave up?”

  
“I lived,” Grantaire sighs. “Many others did not. If living is giving up I cannot find fault in it.”

  
“So you gave it up.”

  
“So I gave it up.”

  
“But you were brave then,” Enjolras continues. "At the masquerade. Was it the mask which made you so bold or are you secretly so by your nature?"

  
“Pardon?”

  
“You took Jeanne’s place,” he presses on. “Why not sell him out? Why take his place?”

  
Grantaire begins to grow uncomfortably warm, faced with Enjolras’ splendid face. He is not accustomed to having so much passion directed exclusively at him.

  
“I admire what you did greatly. I am not sure I would have run the risk of being arrested. To die is one thing--”

  
“You have good cause not to, dear Enjolras.”

  
“Even if I had no such secret to keep,” Enjolras insists. “You were brave. Dare I say you did so because you believe in Jeanne?”

  
Grantaire snorts. “Do you know I had given any associations to change up?”

  
“Then what do you call the last few years?”

  
“I would have remained as I was after I parted from Jeanne were it not for an insufferably long carriage ride from the Midi, where a young man told me he admired Rousseau.”

  
Enjolras nods.

  
“At first I wished only to cure him of his illusions. Unfortunately, it backfired. Instead he cured me of my defeatism, though I do not admit this lightly. I was afraid that an admittance of hope would see it crushed beneath a royal heel.”

  
“I fear the same.”

  
“But you do not let such things stay your hand.”

  
“Reckless of me, perhaps,” Enjolras admits. “Yet I cannot help but fight. I do not feel at ease resting on my laurels. You know we could lead our lives comfortably if we wished it. So why do we not wish it?”

  
“I do not know,” Grantaire sighs, evasively.

  
“I believe you do know.”

  
Grantaire snorts. “Are you certain?”

  
“It is because you too cannot stand the suffering of the wretched.”

  
“Who but the heartless can?”

  
“Do not do yourself such a discredit,” Enjolras shakes his head. They fall into silence.

“I was unfair to you.”

  
Grantaire pauses in his step to interlace their finger tips. Enjolras smiles. In the darkness, he dares to lift Grantaire’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to each individual digit.

"You came, when I asked you to rise. You were there, and in my fear I pushed you away. It was not easy for me to find out that I was prepared to sacrifice my own life for France, but not yours."

"It was not your call to make, you would have said to me , were our situations reversed." 

Enjolras nods. "I am not made of marble, Grantaire. A human heart, a fallible one, beats in my chest. It cares for you and it does not bow to reason as easily as my head."

"More Prince than sun god, I find you," Grantaire smiles. 

"Just so," Enjolras nods. "Only Orestes, after all, and content to be so if it is you who is my companion."

  
“I must say,” Grantaire teases when he finds his voice, “Courfeyrac picked your costume well.”

  
“Inspired by a Benjamin West, I believe,” Enjolras smiles. "He came across it when we were children and was quite moved by their close friendship. His father disapproved of his budding love for the classics, naturally."

  
“Orestes and Pylades Brought As Victims Before Iphigenia, I am familiar with the piece,” Grantaire laughs. “Trust Courfeyrac not to miss a symbolic opportunity. Do you think he meant to portray the King as a necessary sacrifice?”

  
“If he intends for Louis-Philippe to be Iphigenia,” Enjolras shrugs. “The thought had not occurred to me. Nor do I enjoy the idea of fraternity with Monsieur Capet."

  
“I shall have to ask him when next we meet,” Grantaire decides.

  
They walk in silence for a while.

  
“Pylades was bare except for the drape,” Grantaire comments, by and by. Enjolras shoots him a quizzical look. “In the painting,” he amends quickly.

  
“Hardly appropriate even for a masquerade ball, don’t you think?”

  
“Perhaps not,” Grantaire muses. “I am, however, in possession of red bedsheets. If you are not opposed I would favor a more accurate attempt at replicating West.”

  
“Does that mean I am forgiven?”

  
“My wounds will be quite soothed by the portrait I mean to make of you in my bed.”

  
“Be serious,” Enjolras chides, though the prospect seems to excite him.

  
“I am wild.”  


**X. Masked, I advance**.

The sun is high in the sky by the time the revolutionary delegation appears in sight of the crowd gathered around the Tuileries. On the balcony stands a Queen desperately trying not to flee, clutching her children close and keeping both eyes trained stoically on the crowd. As of yet it has remained silent, no one has clamored for her removal or shouted insults. The course of the day remains undecided, however. Grantaire cannot entirely ignore the cadre of armed guards who eye the crowd, among them mingle many faces familiar from his brief stint at the prefecture.

“Here they come now,” Enjolras announces, pressing Grantaire’s hand firmly. “There walks Courfeyrac, do you see him?”

“You can hardly miss that big hat of his,” Grantaire grumbles.

“Today,” Enjolras predicts, “They will make history.”

Content with feeling Enjolras’ sweaty hand in his own, Grantaire does not argue. The sun is shining, after all. Today, nothing will dim it.

**Author's Note:**

> Some Context, as always:  
-Charles Jeanne is an actual historical barricade fighter of the June Rebellion. His barricade is what Les Amis are based on. I felt it right to include him.  
-The Gazette is one of, if not THE oldest newspaper in Paris, dating back to the 17th century.  
-When referring to the White Plague, Courfeyrac and Combeferre quite evidently mean Tuberculosis, but in that day and age mankind did not have a clear idea of what actually caused that disease (or any disease, tbfh.) the dominant school of thought for over a millenium was ofc the four Humors i have extensively vented about. but more recently the idea began to take over that Miasma ( = bad air ) was behind the spread of disease. because how could five thousand people all have the same humoral imbalance at once??? That is actually where the name Malaria comes from. its actually Italian for mal aria, a.k.a. bad air. a few brave souls thought the animalcules (what would later be called bacteria) may be responsible for illness, but it would take a while longer, until Pasteur and Koch in the second half of the 19th century, for that idea to replace Miasma. Anyway, hot debate.  
-Also, tuberculosis leaves "cheese-like" lesions in your Organs because the flesh turns necrotic after your immune System tries to wall mycobacterium tuberculosis off. :)  
\- [ Andreas Hofer Rebellion](https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Andreas_Hofer)  
\- ["The Brave men of Agière" --> La guerre des demoiselles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Maidens)  
\- [ Benjamin West Painting: "Orestes and Pylades Brought as Victims before Iphigenia", 1766 ](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/pylades-and-orestes-brought-as-victims-before-iphigenia/QgH3WCBtRMxdrA)
> 
> Come say Hi on [ Tumblr. ](http://www.annabrolena.tumblr.com)


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